


Green as Gravity

by orphan_account



Series: Fabric of the Future [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Discussion of Death, Earth C, Gen, Jake and Jade ruminate on their grandparents, Mourning, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, hashing out alternate self feelings, ya dig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:04:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The flames reach high into the tropical night air. Though it burns fervently, and the climate is characteristically warm, the fire seems to offer up no heat at all. A few stray sparks are cast up, seeming to reach desperately for freedom like wayward fireflies before snuffing out against the starry sky. Something about that thought might perhaps strike someone as poetic, beautiful even.To you it just seems very sad.(Jake and Jade recount their grandparents, and decide to plant something new)





	1. Constant Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a messy, personal attempt to deal with some of the feelings surrounding the death of my own grandmother. A lot of fanfiction, to me, is a case of feeling a certain way and then parsing it through the lens of characters who share a kinship with the experience. Certainly it can be a way to view yourself in a more compassionate light.
> 
> The update schedule for this is uncertain. I'm going to work on it while I can, but can make no promises when it will be finished. Thank you for understanding.

JADE: what was it like for you?  
JADE: if you feel ok talking about it, i mean  
JAKE: Huh?  
JAKE: Im not sure what you mean exactly.  
JADE: oh, um  
JADE: how did it feel to find...her? me?  
JAKE: You mean...grandma jade?   
JAKE: ...  
JAKE: Oh wow that sure is a whole can o worms to just spring out of chickenfuck nowhere!  
JADE: urgh i knew this was a silly question X(  
JADE: im sorry for bringing it up  
JAKE: No, its--  
JADE: i just  
JADE: i cant stop thinking about it  
JADE: about her  
JADE: the whole alternate self thing was something i struggled with a lot at one point in time  
JADE: it was years ago and i thought i had gotten past it  
JADE: and honestly i was completely fine with the concept!!!  
JADE: i mean yeah i may have flipped out at myself for a while and GOODNESS knows she made me so mad  
JADE: but then the two of us merged together and also with my dog i guess :|  
JAKE: Hehe.  
JADE: and it was just easier to understand after that  
JADE: its hard to stay mad at a part of you when you can remember the pain that they went through...  
JADE: hardER at least  
JAKE: Do you feel mad at her now?  
JADE: my dead dreamself?  
JAKE: No no, i mean my grandma.  
JAKE: I mean i guess im just a little surprised that youre bringing her up now.  
JAKE: We did talk about her sometimes while we were building mr terry kiser after all!  
JAKE: And you never seemed to find it all that strange at the time, not that i remember anyway.  
JAKE: Gosh knows it was a blistering long time ago though so ill be blown if i really remember all that well.  
JADE: im not mad  
JADE: i mean besides anything else i just dont have any reason to be mad at her  
JADE: other than the fact that she left you all alone on a deserted island but then it was hardly her fault :(  
JADE: but  
JADE: bluhhhhhhh i dont know  
JADE: ever since we all met up and came here its just been something that ive been thinking about  
JADE: i was so happy to finally meet you  
JADE: especially after spending so long alone  
JADE: first on that island and then travelling to the new session  
JADE: and after john got exploded...  
JADE: :(  
JAKE: :(  
JADE: even though i was told that somehow he would be okay and that id still see him again  
JADE: thinking about meeting my own grandpa slash grandson really did help me through it in a lot of ways  
JADE: and with bec gone it was really the only connection to that old feeling of home that i had left  
JADE: even though i literally had my old house on a tiny LOFAF hovering over a coffee table somewhere or whatever :\  
JADE: ugh sorry this probably isnt making any sense  
JAKE: ...  
JADE: but then i also started to think about things from your perspective...  
JADE: and wondering about the sort of person that you were waiting to meet when i arrived  
JADE: wondering what that other version of myself was even like  
JADE: the one who lived a whole life on earth and built something for herself that wasnt just tied to this game...  
JADE: even though it all ultimately was  
JADE: and all of it just got caught up with feelings about grandpa that i think id been suppressing for a long time  
JADE: somewhere along the way i realized that i missed him so much even though i did a good job of dealing with it  
JADE: although a lot of that involved pretending he was still alive in some way  
JADE: and god for someone that was dead and stuffed in front of the fireplace he could sure talk the hind leg off a donkey >_>  
JADE: how could you even THINK about going outside without at least five extremely deadly rifles on your person at all times young lassie!!!!!  
JAKE: Hehe, it sounds like i had the right idea about *something* at least.  
JAKE: Although...  
JAKE: Not to cast aspersions or god forbid SUSPICIONS about your dear ol poppop but it always sounded to me like he had a lot of problems and whatnot.  
JAKE: Which is to say that i had a lot of problems i guess on account of us being the same person and all.  
JAKE: I definitely remember reading what you said about him in our letters when i didnt really understand what was going on and thinking about how much devilish fun his life sounded.  
JAKE: Gallivanting off around the world. Expeditioning all over the globe and leaving no stone without being thoroughly turned or at least not without giving it a darn good kick.  
JAKE: Nary a sacred tomb undefiled etcetera.  
JAKE: But somewhere along the line i think it struck me that he just...  
JAKE: Didn't seem like all that splendiferous a guardian, to come clean as a whistle about it.  
JADE: ...  
JAKE: Err, again, not to cast any doubt on your unquestionably righteous feelings on the matter jade, christ in a shithouse i wouldnt want to do that.  
JAKE: But...sometime around when we were all due to rendezvous at the fisticuffs ballroom and get that last hellish hootananny underway i was thinking about this stuff.  
JAKE: About the things that i had always been telling myself that i knew.  
JAKE: About who i was and what i wanted out of life i guess.  
JAKE: About the things that were important to me.  
JAKE: And i dunno jade but just thinking about the old boy after so long it occurs to me that maybe...  
JADE: ...?  
JAKE: Maybe he wasnt really all that happy with who he was in that life either.  
JAKE: But aaaaanyway to answer your question.  
JAKE: I dont really mind talking about it if it would make you feel better to hear about yourself a bit more jade.  
JAKE: Heaven only knows my grandma meant a lot to me and i still miss her a whole megabunch even though i get to hang out with you.  
JADE: i think id like that  
JADE: honestly i dont really know why but i think its something i need to hear  
JADE: maybe its so i can put how i feel about grandpa into context  
JADE: i think youre right about him  
JADE: ive known that for a long time actually  
JADE: though it hurts to admit it out loud, especially to another version of him  
JADE: it was probably the reason why i kept thinking of him as such a meddling presence even after he was dead  
JADE: despite the fact that when it came down to it he wasnt all that much help while he was still alive  
JADE: part of the difficulty i had was just realizing the fact that he had very silly notions of what raising a child was supposed to involve  
JADE: i knew all sorts about hunting and exploring and geophysics and particle accelerators  
JADE: but honestly what kind of responsible grandparent exposes a child to a blunderbuss before teaching them how to use a cookalizer, or even a refrigifyificator??? :|  
JADE: certainly he could hardly be considered a terribly proper guardian at all.  
JADE: not to mention the fact that, as it turned out, i wasnt the first family that hed left behind  
JADE: i dont really know anything much about it but...there was a lot of stuff squirreled away in between the weird pictures of all his blue beauties  
JAKE: (Oh, dear sweet neytiri...)  
JADE: letters and photographs that hed hidden somewhere to just forget about  
JADE: faces of men and women and children i didnt recognize  
JAKE: Oh criminey.  
JAKE: Sparks of past torrid romances do you suppose?  
JADE: i guess so!!  
JADE: suffice it to say i think the man HASSED many an old flame :p  
JAKE: Hehe.  
JADE: but...  
JADE: i didnt really think about it all that much until a lot later, when there wasnt all that much TO think about  
JADE: i couldnt stop myself from wondering why he stayed with me in the first place  
JADE: why did he pick me up out of that crater and decide that this was the family hed stick with?  
JADE: did he even make that choice at all???  
JADE: or was it something that just happened to him by accident  
JADE: did he still plan to up and leave after i was old enough to look after myself?  
JADE: (even though thats basically what happened anyway... >:\\)  
JADE: i think the worst thought that occured to me was that  
JADE: maybe it wasnt either of those things  
JADE: maybe he just ended up stuck with me because of all of the convoluted time junk that skaia locked us into  
JADE: and in a way that made more sense to me even though it hurt to think about  
JADE: because everything in my life seems to have been like that when i really consider it  
JADE: so much of my childhood was spent watching the clouds from prospits moon  
JADE: waiting and tending to all of the various futures they showed me  
JADE: shepherding things towards where they needed to be  
JADE: all while never really knowing anything about why i was doing it other than that it clearly HAD to be done because id already seen it!  
JADE: i didnt really mind because on some level i trusted what skaia was telling me  
JADE: i always have and i still do  
JADE: but sometimes when im not really in the right frame of mind it can be a little hard not to feel frustrated about it still :(  
JADE: like...  
JADE: UGH when the final battle was going down and everyone had their important part to play  
JADE: and the task allotted to me turned out to be getting clocked in the face by a hot dog lady >:|  
JAKE: Wha  
JADE: and i know calliope, the other calliope, told me that i had already done more than my fair share  
JADE: but it never felt like that at all!!!   
JADE: i never felt like i did anything difficult or heroic in the slightest  
JADE: i was basically a god two times over right from the moment i died on my quest bed  
JADE: i had prospit, skaia, the green sun...  
JADE: and sprite magic on top of that!  
JAKE: Not to mention the nigh incalculable power that comes from having the ears of a fiendish devilhound?  
JADE: UGH dont even MENTION the ears  
JADE: i still have problems with the barking sometimes >:(  
JAKE: That does sound rough.  
JADE: ruff  
JAKE: Thats what i said.  
JADE: (sigh)  
JADE: anyway like i said its not really something i spend a HUGE amount of time worrying about  
JADE: especially since in the end its more important to focus on the fact that we made it through all of that  
JADE: and dont have to concern ourselves with it to any greater or lesser degree than maybe any normal person should  
JADE: but still...  
JADE: i think its just part of my curiosity at this point :p  
JAKE: Now that does sound like something my dear ol grandma would say!  
JAKE: Well jade im not sure if what i can say will be all you might have cracked it up to be but gee willikers if i cant give it a darn good try.  
JAKE: I honestly havent talked much about the night my grandma died a lot with anyone except for dirk, on account of best brohood and such.  
JADE: oh is that what you two are calling it??? :o  
JAKE: SHHHHhhh jeepers jade thats besides the point!!  
JADE: (hehehe)  
JAKE: But in all gentlemanly candor i really havent talked to people much about this at all, so youll have to pardon the humdinger of a clusterfuck im likely to make of the whole shebang.  
JAKE: Stringing an epic yarn is not a skill that could be reliably said to sit plum center in my wheelhouse.  
JAKE: Incidentally did you know that a wheelhouse is a part of a boat jade?  
JAKE: Dirk told me that fact if i have it straight.  
JADE: (pfff)  
JAKE: The chap is a veritable singing fountain of assorted tidbits and items of trivia i honestly dont know where he gets it from.  
JAKE: He and jane sure are two smart cookies, roxy too.  
JAKE: Our whole friendship entourage was a veritable panoply of confectionary dressed to the devilfucking nines when you think about it.  
JAKE: Well.   
JAKE: Maybe not all of us, but.  
JAKE: OH and of course you jade how could i forget you.  
JAKE: Even when we were exchanging letters all those years ago you knew so much about gosh darned everything it was enough to make a boys head near explodify.  
JADE: ...jake.  
JAKE: And heavens above now ive gone and forgotten our other human friends.   
JAKE: Especially the recently wed mrs lalonde.  
JAKE: Theres simply not a question in all of paradox space that she doesnt seem to have a witty answer to.   
JAKE: And dave seems to have everything figured out what with him and karkat deconstructificating the boundaries of human/troll romancey doodah.  
JADE: JAKE!!!!! >:O  
JAKE: Oh cripes jade im sorry i was waffling on something rotten again wasnt i.  
JAKE: What were we talking about again before i started singing the praises of all and sundry on my humble lute?  
JADE: you were going to tell me about that night with your grandma!!!  
JAKE: RIGHT right yes of course.  
JAKE: I did say that yes.  
JAKE: Yep, thats without a doubt an utterance that passed the threshold of this ol kisser.  
JADE: ...  
JAKE: ...  
JADE: jake? :o  
JAKE: ......  
JADE: .........  
JAKE: ............  
JADE: ...............  
JAKE: AAAAARGH im so friggin sorry jade im having a real hard time putting the words together.  
JAKE: I was so dead cert that it would be something that i could just rattle off at a speed of knots like it was a freshly christened schooner.  
JAKE: Especially since it sounds like it would mean the world to you and id do anything to help you jade.  
JAKE: I think maybe i wasnt really thinking ABOUT it so much even when you first brought it up.  
JADE: jake its totally fine if you arent ready to talk about it!!!  
JADE: im sorry that i put that pressure on you :c  
JAKE: Its not that jade you neednt worry about it like that.  
JAKE: I think its more part of a general problem that i have sometimes.   
JAKE: With concentrating on some thoughts long enough to really hammer out the darn words to put them into description if that makes a lick of sense.  
JAKE: And sometimes that means that i just end up avoiding subjects that i know arent easily understandable or dressed up in prose and so on.  
JAKE: At least, not to me.  
JADE: jake  
JADE: its okay if you cant put it into words right now!  
JADE: especially if its something youve been putting off for a long time  
JADE: but please dont talk about yourself like...  
JAKE: Like?  
JADE: well, like you think so little about yourself!!! >:O  
JAKE: !  
JADE: has somebody been saying things about your intelligence again? >:(  
JADE: i may not be connected to the green sun any more but  
JADE: i still have sharp dog fangs and a rifle or three to kick their butt with  
JADE: tell me who it is and ill bite them   
JADE: ill bite them SO hard  
JAKE: Hahaha oh jade i do love you so much you know that right.  
JAKE: You dont need to worry about all that stuff so much any more, not least because im perfectly capable of standing up for myself!  
JAKE: *Gestures to assorted guns, pistols and other deudly firearms about my person*  
JAKE: I mean it was something that people used to pick on me for a lot and yes it did provide its fair share of doldrums and malaise.  
JAKE: They didnt christen it the slab of the jaded fools ennui for nothing!  
JADE: did they really call it that??  
JAKE: Hells bells they did and it even has a little plaque in my honor that got put there when we relocated it to earth c.  
JADE: hehe ok that is kinda funny :p  
JAKE: Hahah yeah.  
JAKE: But no seriously jade its something that im working hard on getting past and its a train of thought that im learning to derail before it even leaves the station tooting its malicious whistle.  
JAKE: And speaking of derailments ill try my darndest to not put off the subject any more and just come out with something..  
JADE: you can take your time jake its okay :B  
JAKE: ....  
JAKE: Okay.  



	2. Eight Minutes from Earth

The flames reach high into the tropical night air. Though it burns fervently, and the climate is characteristically warm, the fire seems to offer up no heat at all. A few stray sparks are cast up, seeming to reach desperately for freedom like wayward fireflies before snuffing out against the starry sky. Something about that thought might perhaps strike someone as poetic, beautiful even.

To you it just seems very sad.

It was a pragmatic choice, you told yourself. There was nothing else to be done about it. If you had just left her there, the various monsters on the island would have spared none of her dignity; and in a way it wouldn't have been all that different from just letting her rot. The two possibilities were essentially the same, after all. It's all a matter of scale.

(If one of them killed her, why didn't it carry her away in the first place? It doesn't make any sense.)

You look up at those stars, the ones that she used to point out often. You remember a story she once told you, about how everywhere that's anywhere all used to be the same place; about how one day everything got tired of being nothing but itself and decided to become different things; about how those different things flung themselves out to those different places, relishing in the distances and wide expanses between them, free at last to be something new; about how, eventually, loneliness led them back to one another, about how in their reunion they found a different kind of newness, about how they shone together with the hope that it brought them. About how one day even that light died. About how, from the ash left in its wake, you came into being.

Of course, she didn't put it quite like that—atoms this, strings that, spaciotemporal expansion whathaveyou. Space and science-y hogswill was her life after all, and you were just a child. But she seemed to think you got the gist of it all the same. And when you asked, through tears, how something so big and beautiful could have come from things so small and fragile, she only smiled her warmest crookedest smile and said: 'It's all a matter of scale'.

(It's all a matter of matter.)

As the last glow of her embers settles down, it is like the warmth of her presence, already strangely absent, seems to fizzle and fade away like the memory of a dream. A dream of a memory.

Her ashes have mixed with that of the pyre, the thought of which frustrates you as you sombrely gather her up, along with your thoughts. She's already started to dissipate, to spread herself thin, to mingle with other somethings again. You suppose perhaps that she doesn't mind it as much as you do—what was it that she always said about going back to nature?

Grandma had always spoken about life like a kind of process. People exist in the same way that a whirlpool does, she said, only insofar as they are a consistent disturbance in an ever-moving stream. You can look at them one day and the next and recognise them as the same, but the water is completely different. The ship still bears the same name though its timbers are all replaced.

Now it seems like that whirlpool has vanished, and you don't know where to. The river is still moving, still rushing onward—still washing everything away—but her crookedness in the flow has been straightened out, her twisted geometry unwound. Maybe she got tired of being herself, you think. Perhaps it was time to be something else. Sometimes you understand that feeling.

But there's still a furious part of you that wants to stamp his foot in the dust, and shout 'NO', and by some hopeful miracle pull her essence back and condense her into herself and pour her back into her own shape where she belongs. (Belonged). And this anger—it's hot and white and burning like nothing you can remember, and as the thought of her smile flashes in your mind it draws the hotness out of you and it spills over. Your hands twist together, fingers curling into your shirt as the tears seem to bubble out of you, as your mouth opens by itself as if to bite off the scream before it starts. While before you were curled up, now something seems to snap. And suddenly you're bolt upright, hurling curse after curse at the wretched sky, and the stars that seems to wink at you so mockingly. How fucking dare you take her, you say, how fucking *dare* you think you could have her before she was done, what right did you have to pull her apart at the seams and spill her into the earth for the plants to feed on? What right...what right...what right...

* * *

You wring yourself out like this until there's nothing left.

Wiping your face with the back of a hand, you mournfully summon one of your favorite sacred urns from your sylladex and scoop as much of the ash as you can into it. And then you begin the long walk back to whatever is left of her house. In all the confusion at finding your grandmother you didn't really manage to process anything else. But now there it is, sitting on top of the hill: a smoldering ruin where a home should be.

While she was alive, you could never get the hang of finding your way around on this island. But it was okay, because she always seemed to know exactly where to turn at any given moment. Knew how to draw a line between anywhere and everywhere. Or...maybe that wasn't the right way of putting it. Perhaps it was more like she simply put one foot in front of the other, and somehow the world itself unfurled, un-spooled a path for her. Like a yellow brick road for her to follow.

The pillar of black being belched up into the night air doesn't lead you home, because home isn't there any more. But it acts as a kind of beacon beckoning you back to where it once was, at least. As you make your way up the mountainside the air, which would usually become thinner, instead begins to thicken with soot and ash—the effect is still the same though, and your tired lungs begin struggling to breathe while you concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Something pricks at the corner of your eyes and all of a sudden you're crying again, and you feel so utterly ridiculous, traipsing up a volcano sobbing and coughing and sniffling through the smoke and snot and sadness. The tears carve little rivers into the dust caking your cheeks.

It only gets worse as you begin to pass smoldering pieces of the wreckage on the climb. And as you ascend, you find yourself anxiously scanning the debris. Lumps of stone and mortar, a cracked portion of the main dome, broken pottery, charred vegetation expelled violently from the once-extant greenhouse—all of it is charred, burning, broken.

In a moment of distraction your feet catch against something, and then the world seems to lurch underneath you—suddenly your hands are flying out in front of you to catch you as you sprawl on the ground. You manage to break your fall, but just barely. Pain sears like a burn across one knee, the skin shredding itself against the rough stone and gravel. And for a moment you stay there, on your hands and knees in the dirt, just staring down at the earth beneath you.

What would she have said if she could see you here?

You shift to take a look at what it was that sent you tumbling. The back end of a rifle is sticking straight out of the ground, the butt of it pointed up towards the sky. One of grandma's hunting weapons. You suppose she must have left the house without it. You scramble around on all fours to get a closer look at it, then wrap both hands around it and pull. It doesn't budge an inch. Your hands, covered with sweat and grime, are struggling to get a grip on it. You wipe them on your shorts, then slowly get to your feet and dust yourself off. You plant one foot either side of it this time, squeezing as tight as you can with your fingers and pulling with your back and shoulders as hard as you can. Still nothing.

In a flash of anger you hurl a curse at the wretched thing, and then kick one booted foot at it in frustration. There is an almighty cracking sound, and in an instant the gun snaps in half. The metal must have weakened in the heat of the blast, because it shears straight through. The wooden grip clatters to the ground, useless. Without thinking you lunge for it, and then bring your fist up and spike it on the ground with a vengeance, and then you're stamping and grinding it into the dust with your boot and screaming. You were supposed to protect us, you shout: you were supposed to keep us safe. And she left you behind.

In that moment, you swear you won't make the same mistake.

Eventually the burning in your chest subsides again, and your arms fall limp by your sides. What are you doing? You wipe your nose on your sleeve and the blood off your knee, and then slowly begin to climb again.

After what feels like hours you find yourself standing just shy of the threshold of the house, or where it used to be. A few metres of crumbling stone either side of the main archway is all the remains of the front-facing edifice—the rest of the outer wall has been completely blown away save for a knee-high portion of the perimeter.

It seems like the force of the explosion removed the upper portions of the building before they had a chance to collapse inward. From a distance, when it happened, you watched as like a firework the scattered pieces blazed their way across the sky; grasping hungrily for something just out of reach before all at once giving up and plummeting earthward, a chorus of angels all perishing in unison. The light from their trails lit up the forest below in blood red and orange. One large morning star among many seemed to hang in the air for just a moment longer before vanishing, but perhaps you imagined it.

(You didn't.)

You were hoping that there would at least be something salvageable in the wreckage. You were hoping that there would be something here that could anchor her memory somehow. A sight, a sound. A smell. But there's nothing here. There's just...nothing. The person this house revolved around has vanished, the centripetal force holding all its various pieces in orbit is gone, and as if in response to this loss of gravity they were flung out into space on myriad tangential trajectories. An escape (by) velocity.

Grandma once tried to explain how, if the Sun were to vanish, it would take about eight minutes for the Earth to even notice. Eight minutes, quietly revolving around something that wasn't even there. Eight blissful minutes of delusion, of wishful denial that would somehow have enough power to keep the planet in orbit. Eight minutes of hope enough to keep on going despite it all.

You don't know how many minutes it has been for you.

* * *

The burning shell of the house illuminates your path down to the jungle as you make your way back down the mountain. The sky is still pretty clear and the moon is almost completely full (what was the word for that again?) so you have no real difficulty seeing in the dark. A small mercy, but still. Nevertheless, as you begin to approach the tree-line you find yourself squinting to make out a path.

You are considering the possibility of camping out in the ancient ruins for a while, in lieu of anything more sensible presenting itself. But in order to get there you are going to have to venture into the forest for a spell.

You have never strayed far under the canopy this late at night before. Grandma had always said that it was too dangerous for you to be there, and you didn't have any reason not to believe her. You know what kind of creatures call it home. The monsters which creep in the shadows, with hide and fur and scales as white as marble. Just thinking about them seems to summon up a stronger darkness, the inky black of the jungle interior almost reaching out for you hungrily. You freeze in place for a moment, every follicle in your body straining in the opposite direction. A voice whispers in your ears, cool and collected but urgent: it's not safe here. It's not safe. Go back.

And for a moment you give in to that impulse. For a moment you feel your head turn, and immediately a wave of relief washes over you. But then you look back up to the summit, to the wreckage of your home, and you realize that of *course*. Of course it's not safe here. Nowhere is safe for you any more. So you grit your teeth and squeeze a few more bitter tears from your eyes, and ball your fists up by your sides. You shake yourself, dancing in place for a moment, like you're trying to expel the fear from your body as a dog would shake the water from its fur.

And then you begin to walk.

You tread as softly as you can, and keep to the outskirts of the forest as much as possible. Your plan is to work your way around the jungle as far as is practical without venturing inside—that way you can keep the mountain and the moon in sight for navigation on your way down to the lake. The thought conjures the image of a noble explorer in your mind, a wayfaring soul having naught but the heavens to guide them. You smile bitterly at that. This is one adventure you wish had never happened.

You shuffle your way through the undergrowth for a few minutes, brushing against ferns and stepping lightly over fallen branches as you go, and all the while straining your ears for any sudden sounds. Nothing appears to be stirring, but in a way that's worse. Something tells you that things only get quiet around here when they have a reason to want to stay silent. Things that would like to accost you, un-benignly and without notice. More than once you stop in your tracks, duck low to the ground, and slowly revolve in place to see if anything might be following you, but you don't spot anything out of the ordinary. And more than once there is nothing but the rustle of the leaves in the wind and the smell of burning.

You don't notice it at first, too busy focusing on everything else at once. But after a few minutes you glance to your left, where the line of the trees should be, and you stop dead.

Something has punched a hole straight through. A wide, gaping mouth has opened up in the border of the jungle, trees crushed and flattened and broken in a wide path, their half-trunks sticking splintered out of the ground like rows upon rows of jagged teeth. The blood in your body suddenly feels ice cold, seeming to freeze and sink down into the bottom of your stomach, your legs, your feet. Could one of the many incredibly deadly fauna of the island have done this? Could it have killed your grandmother? Is it waiting for you too?

But after a moment of this, you look down and notice that the earth beneath you has been carved and compacted into a wide, shallow dip. It's too smooth a formation to have been caused by any kind of creature, ungodly or otherwise. In a flash of inspiration you remember: the orbs atop your house. There was no sign of them amid the wreckage, so it's entirely possible that one of them could have careened straight down the mountain and crashed into the jungle.

You have no way of knowing what state it could be in, but the mere thought of something, anything from the old house having survived is enough to bring a spark of warmth back into you. The slow, cold fear that had been crystallising inside you for the past few hours retreats for a moment as your heart picks up a nervous, optimistic pace. Taking care not to make too much noise you begin to walk briskly alongside one of the walls of the tree-lined tunnel. The voice in your head which has been silent for a while begins to take up a quiet chant, a kind of prayer. Please let there be something.

* * *

You shake the batteries in your torch back into alignment, and a thin beam of light hangs itself on the dust in the air. It darts around the murky interior of the entryway, before settling on a staircase, leading up. Thank goodness. The exterior looked fine, but there was no telling from the outside whether the inner structure had been left intact. You hoist yourself up into the narrow entryway that once formed part of an internal corridor. Your left hand idly brushes against the wall as you make your way carefully down the passage.

You hit a flight of stairs a little ways in. The only way is up.

Maybe it's the familiar smell that you meet, halfway to the door. Perhaps it's just everything you've been feeling up until now finally coming crashing back down. But as finally turn around the bend and come up into the room above, you're already weeping. You don't sob, there's no sound. You don't even notice it happening. Not until the first drops roll down your face and kiss their way off the bottom of your chin.

It's chaos in here. Like a bomb went off inside a washing machine tied to a carousel. A bed is lying, upended against one wall. An eclectic clusterfuck of objects is strewn about the place, each one familiar and yet not familiar—rearrangement and reordering making them alien to you.

And it strikes you as cruel, then, as you fall to your knees to search through the assorted junk. If there was any hope of a remaining, lingering presence of your life here, of your grandmother, it would have been in the positioning of these things. The ways that a house shapes itself around the people who occupied it. The choices which governed its use, invisible save for the angle of a chair, the slant of the curtains. The pictures on the walls. If there was a place your grandmother could still exist, you thought, it would have been there. But now all that has been swept away. There is no presence to be felt in the madness that remains: there is no logic, no reason, no compassion or humanity to this mayhem. No hands, cracked and warped with age and use, placed anything here. No eyes discerned this design from behind round spectacles with crinkles at the corners. No gentle smile fashioned this room into shape.

This time the pain doesn't come from your chest. Instead it spreads slowly from your hands and up your arms, like there's something which has wormed its way into the bones and begun eating you from the inside. An ache that you feel in your joints.

Your eight minutes are up. And you're floating loose, now, alone and without warmth.

 


End file.
